Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers
September 16, 2008 at 4:15 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 54 Comments
Just reading the recipe for this cookie is enough to make you grab a tube of Clearasil and apply a proactive smear all over your face. You may initially feel relief upon only seeing 3 tablespoons of butter, but look a little closer, and you’ll see 1+(6×3)=19…19 ounces of chocolate! This cookie is basically bits of chocolate held together with a smidge of brownie batter. Before you think I’m poo-pooing the Chocolate Chunkers (did someone say poo-poo? hmmm…I won’t go any further, but I think you know what I mean), let me make it clear that they are insanely good! Thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for picking it for TWD this week! And a special shout-out to Mari…I did totally copycat you with the cooling rack thing (although yours is cuter!). What can I say? I am out of ideas for cookie photography at this point.
This recipe is easily divides in half, but I toughed out the math to cut it down to just a third. I didn’t want to blow my whole chocolate stash in one swoop. Dorie notes that good chocolate is a must here, and she ain’t kidding. For the label-curious, I used cocoa powder by Valrhona, bittersweet by Scharffen Berger, unsweetened (well, really 85%) by Lindt, milk by Green & Black’s and white by Belcolade. Semisweet was also in the recipe, but I don’t have any, so I used a bittersweet/milk combo instead. It’s not all chocolate in here, though…there are nuts and dried fruit going on, too. I decided to toss in coconut flakes rather than raisins, which I don’t like, and toasted almonds. The whole thing was deliciuosly Almond Joy-esq.
A couple of observations…if you chill this dough, it becomes rock-hard! For easier shaping, and the well-being of your cookie scoop, you may want to let it come to room temp before digging into it. Also, my cookies didn’t want to flatten at all in the oven, so at the half-way point I helped them out by giving them a gentle smoosh with a silicone spatula.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Claudia’s post to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
P.S.: This week I’m Port Douglas, Queensland. I know, I know…I’ve been travelling a lot lately. Back over the weekend!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops
September 9, 2008 at 5:20 am | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 63 Comments
We had a great week in New Zealand…the South Island is so beautiful, with so many different landscapes, it almost doesn’t look real in some places. And the baby sheep (otherwise known as lambs, I guess)–heart-meltingly cute! Lots of good food and vino, too (so much that, even though we brought back several bottles of wine, I am on the wagon for the next couple weeks). Should you ever go to Christchurch, do yourself a favor and check out Restaurant Schwass. Same goes for Gibb’s Vineyard Restaurant in Blenheim in the Marlborough wine region.
Enough rambling–on to the cookies! Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops are the TWD choice of Rachel from Confessions of a Tangerine Tart. These cookies are really Maltesers drops, the brand of malt ball sold here. A lot of people say they are better than Whoppers, but I haven’t had a Whopper in a very long time, so I can neither confirm nor deny this. (If you live in Brooklyn, though, the dark chocolate espresso malt balls sold at Two For the Pot on Clinton Street are most definitely the best ever!) I was pleased to notice a dark version of Maltesers, and that’s what I used here.
I, of course, only made half a batch of cookies, and they were a bit of a test-kitchen experiment for me. I don’t have any malted milk powder, and I wasn’t about to buy a big canister of Milo or Ovaltine just to make cookies. I do, though, have barley malt syrup and powdered milk, so for my half-batch I used 1/2 cup of powdered milk and 2 teaspoons of malt syrup in place of the malt powder. Luckily, they were not a total mess! Malt syrup is strong stuff, and the flavor here is definitely noticeable. I did do something that some may consider a sin–I cut back the amount of chopped malt balls and chocolate chunks (for which I used white instead of dark) by about 25%. It was still plenty, trust me, but I guess that’s why I don’t see as many chunky bits on the surface of mine as in Dorie’s book picture.
The first night, we ate them straight up, and they were so soft and chewy that R commented that they would be the perfect ice cream sandwich cookie. Well, I can’t ignore a comment like that, so the next day I made a batch of vanilla malted ice cream. He was right–they were great, albeit a little drippy.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Confessions of a Tangerine Tart to find the recipe. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
September 2, 2008 at 4:09 am | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 43 Comments
This week for TWD, Stefany of Proceed with Caution chose these Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. They combine the best bits of all my favorite cookies, and even have a little spice in there, too!
Since more cookies are on the baking horizon, I made just a quarter recipe. I have a lot of half-used bits of chocolate floating around, so I put milk chocolate chunks instead of bittersweet in these, purely for the satisfaction of finishing off a bar.
They came out great, thankfully. Anytime I have to bake with my precious stash of Jif (which I bring back on trips the States), I sweat a little that the recipe will be a bomb. The PB is subtle in flavor, but the cookies really smell peanuty, and the little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg gives them a warm flavor. I baked mine on the low end of the recommended time, so they’d stay a little soft, which is how I prefer a chocolate chip cookie to be. Dorie notes that these are great cookies to make ice cream sandwiches with. I totally bet she’s right, but I didn’t have the stomach (or maybe too much of the stomach is really my problem) to try that out!
I’m actually in New Zealand for most of the week and may not be able to go through the TWD Blogroll myself, but you should definitely check it out! And look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Proceed with Caution to find the recipe for these cookies.
Cookie Carnival: Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti
August 28, 2008 at 2:24 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things | 15 Comments
Kate over at The Clean Plate Club has come up with a great monthly event–one that combines my love for cookies with my equally passionate love for carnie rides! The price of admission to this month’s Cookie Carnival is a batch of chocolate-hazelnut biscotti. There’s been a lot of chocolate and hazelnut here this month, hasn’t there? Well, that’s OK–it’s one of my favorite combos, so keep it coming!
A café cookie jar staple, we all know biscotti as the crunchy biscuits we dip in our lattes. They are “twice baked” to get that hard crunch…first a large log to set the dough, and then again when that dough is sliced into individual cookies.
Besides the fact that I made just one-quarter of the full recipe, I did substitute white chocolate chunks for the semisweet chips. I figured that since the biscotti have a dark cocoa base, the white chocolate would go nicely. And, as a result of some shopping confusion, I have a giant bag of white chocolate pistoles that I’m itching to use up. A couple of months ago I bought a one kilo bag of the stuff for the DB opera cake. It should have been fairly obvious that there was no way I’d need that much, but for some reason my brain sometimes chooses to sit out the decision-making process..
These biscotti were good. I wasn’t crazy about them when they were fresh put of the oven, but they were much improved after sitting around for a few hours, I thought, and quite perfect when dunked into coffee the next morning. That being said, while I am glad I made them, I probably won’t make them again…but only because there are just too many other cookies out there to try!
Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti- makes about 4 dozen
from The Bakehouse in Bloomington, IN (recipe from Bon Appétit)
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, husked
3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup semisweet or white chocolate chips or chunks
-Preheat oven to 350°F. Line heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper.
-Grind 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts in processor. Set aside. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl.
-Beat butter and sugar in another large bowl to blend. Add eggs and vanilla and almond extracts and beat until well blended. Beat in flour mixture. Mix in 1 cup whole toasted hazelnuts, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts.
-Divide dough into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece on baking sheet into 2 1/2-inch-wide by 14-inch-long log. Place logs on prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart (logs will spread during baking). Bake until logs feel firm when tops are gently pressed, about 35 minutes.
-Cool logs on baking sheet 15 minutes. Maintain oven temperature.
-Using long wide spatula, transfer baked logs to cutting board. Using serrated knife, cut warm logs crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices.
-Arrange slices, cut side down, on 2 baking sheets. Bake biscotti until firm, about 15 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool completely. (Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti can be prepared ahead. Store in airtight container up to 4 days, or wrap in foil and freeze in resealable plastic bags up to 3 weeks.)
Tuesdays with Dorie: Granola Grabbers
August 19, 2008 at 5:46 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 46 Comments
Granola Grabbers– I feel so wholesome. Perhaps Michelle of Bad Girl Baking was going for that good, clean feeling when she chose these for TWD this week.
Whether you are trying to satisfy the after-school crowd, or are just trying to put aside those impure thoughts you’ve been having about Gael García Bernal ever since watching The Motorcycle Diaries a few days ago, these will do the trick. These chubby little cookies are loaded with granola (of course), wheat germ, nuts, coconut and raisins (or dried cranberries, in my case). I also added a pinch of cinnamon to mine. They are chewy, but the granola also makes them crunchy…a very pleasant combination of textures. I only made a third of a recipe, and I briefly thought about patting the dough into a loaf pan and making bars instead, but I have definitely not been getting my recommended daily dose of cookies lately.
Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or on Bad Girl Baking to find the recipe for Granola Grabbers. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 200 other people had to say!
Tuesdays with Dorie: French Chocolate Brownies
June 3, 2008 at 6:04 am | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 67 Comments
Next in the queue for Tuesdays with Dorie is the recipe for French Chocolate Brownies, courtesy of Di from Di’s Kitchen Notebook. I first heard of this recipe about a year ago when it was included in a New York Times article about brownies…I saved it and (even though it doesn’t call for nuts) have been wanting to make it ever since. Seems Dorie originally intended these to be a fondant-style cake when she served them at a dinner party for French friends, but they just assumed that their American hostess had made them brownies. Dorie, not missing a beat, went right along with it, and everyone loved them!
Some TWDers noted long baking times and a dry crust as drawbacks of this recipe. Mine came out with quite a nice thin crust layer, and it wasn’t overly crackly either. I made a half recipe in a loaf pan…I took them out at the 45 minute mark, although I admit that I accidentally baked them at 325°F. Oops–I’m not always paying complete attention, but luckily no brownies were hurt due to negligence! Not quite a fudgy brownie, and not quite a cakey one either, these had an almost silky texture that I liked a lot when eaten at room temperature (not so appealing cold, though).
Something really funny that I’ve learned from TWD is that there are a lot of raisin-haters out there. I thought maybe I was the only one, so I feel better knowing I’m actually in good company. This brownie recipe called for rum-flamed raisins to be mixed into the batter, which sounded less than thrilling. I’m all for a good flambé, though, so I decided to ignite some chopped dates instead. The dates worked really well…just kind of melding into the overall sweetness of the brownies, rather than being too conspicuous.
To go alongside these faux French pastries, I made Dorie’s recipe for Faux Crème Fraîche, near the back of the book. It’s just a little vanilla whipped cream with some sour cream folded in, but somehow it made the whole thing très chic.
Open up Di’s Kitchen Notebook or Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan to find the recipe. (Dorie has also written about it on Serious Eats.) Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie: Traditional Madeleines
May 20, 2008 at 3:37 am | Posted in cakes & tortes, cookies & bars, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 55 Comments
I’d been crossing my fingers that Tara of Smells Like Home would choose a cookie for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. Then Tara picked Dorie’s Traditional Madeleines–score! I know that a madeleine is really cake in cookie’s clothing, but after all the hard-core desserting I’ve been doing (and still have left to do this month), I was happy to have something that’s just a sweet bite.
I have fond voluntary (as opposed to Proustian-ha!) memories of these little scalloped-shaped cuties. Actually my memories are quite recent, as we made madeleines as part of the petits fours plate at the restaurant I last worked for. That recipe uses browned butter and almond flour, and we made a variety of flavors, from lavender to lemon-thyme, depending on what we felt like or what we had available.
Dorie’s recipe is flavored with lemon zest, and even though she doesn’t instruct you to brown the melted butter, I went ahead and did it anyway. Browned butter just has such a beautiful flavor, I used my non-stick mini madeleine pan (which is the only one I have, and trust me, you still need to grease it well) to bake them off, and made half of Dorie’s recipe. Rather than sprinkling them with powdered sugar before serving, I tossed the still-warm madeleines in some finely ground vanilla sugar.
I will say that these make very good little lemony tea cakes. They are soft and light and tasty (do bake them right when you are ready to eat them though, as they stale quickly). But I have one gripe. If we are talking about “tradition” here, then madeleines are supposed to have a bump on their backsides. We learned in culinary school that the bump is desirable, and our instructor said that madeleines are often presented with their bums in the air (rather than scalloped side up) to show them off. Dorie calls for chilling the batter for at least three hours to help form this bump. The same day I made the batter, I baked up half of it after letting it chill for several hours. No bump. The next day, I baked up the remaining batter (it had now been chilling overnight). Two madeleines had the bump…the rest didn’t. Ah well…after conferring with other TWDers, this seemed to happen to most everyone. And as Ulrike pointed out, even the Traditional Madeleines pictured in Dorie’s book don’t have bumps!
If you’d like to try your hand at baking madeleines (and see if you get the coveted golden bump!), you can find the recipe here on Smells Like Home or in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll!
Snickerdoodles
April 16, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Posted in book review, cookies & bars, sweet things | 17 Comments
I think that snickerdoodles are totally underrated. Sure everyone loves them, but if asked to name a favorite cookie, I bet very few people think of them first. They don’t have chips, or nuts or raisins, but their beauty is in their old-fashioned simplicity…and in their adorable crinkly tops.
When I first thumbed though The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy (see here for my review), her recipe for snickerdoodles was the first that I wanted to try. This is such an easy cookie to make, and you don’t even have to have any fancy ingredients. The effort to reward ratio here is really in the baker’s favor. The recipe makes a lot– three dozen cookies if you use her one ounce size guideline. That’s too many for us to eat at once, but cookie dough freezes beautifully. So in a few days, I can thaw out a bit more dough and bake a few more of these sweet, cinnamony and slightly chewy cookies. Lovely!
The smell of cinnamon and butter baking in the oven is so good– I should manufacture a snickerdoodle-scented room spray.
Snickerdoodles– makes 3 dozen cookies
from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy. All rights reserved. Copyright © Melissa Murphy, 2008
For the dough:
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon kosher saltFor the cinnamon sugar:
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ cup sugar
-In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs and mix until combined.
-In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Add to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until combined. The dough will be soft and too sticky to roll. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.
-Position a rack in the top and bottom thirds of your oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
-For the cinnamon sugar: Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.
-Using a 1-ounce cookie scoop, or a tablespoon, shape the dough into balls and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.
-Place the cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Flatten them slightly with your fingertips so that they stay put. Bake for about 12 to 13 minutes, or until the bottoms are slightly golden in color. These cookies are supposed to be chewy, so do not overbake. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
*Snickerdoodles keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. For longer storage, freeze well wrapped in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil for up to 3 weeks. Do not uncover before defrosting.
Tuesdays with Dorie: Snickery Squares
March 4, 2008 at 8:22 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 34 Comments
Erin of Dinner and Dessert was at the controls for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. She chose Dorie Greenspan’s Snickery Squares from the book Baking: From My Home to Yours. Dorie calls these “classy Snickers.” Shortbread, dulce de leche, candied peanuts and chocolate glaze…okay, there’s no nougat, but we won’t get too technical here! They still sounded candybar-licious to me!
I can’t say that I’ve noticed store-bought dulce de leche at my local grocery store in Sydney, so I made my own from a can of sweetened condensed milk . I threw caution to the wind and did it they way they all say not to…I boiled it in the can for three hours. Luckily there were no horrific explosions, and when I opened up the tin a few days later (I went away for the weekend and stashed it in the fridge), I had a can of beautifully thick caramel goo.
My bars look a little more oozy than they probably should. I just made them this afternoon, and had to shortcut the chilling time before their photo-session, as my daylight was fleeting! These are rich…super-rich. I’d maybe prefer a thinner layer of bittersweet chocolate topping, but besides that, no complaints here!
You can find the recipe for Snickery Squares in Baking: From My Home to Yours or on Dinner and Dessert. And don’t forget to check out the posts from the other Tuesdays with Dorie members!
browniebabe #3: Milk Chocolate Brownies with Wattleseed
August 16, 2007 at 4:22 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, events, sweet things | 6 Comments
Woo-hoo! It’s browniebabe time again over at Once Upon a Tart. Myriam continues to taunt us all with her super-cute apron! I’ve already declared my love for all things plain and simple when it comes to brownies, so I really tried hard to think of an uncomplicated brownie that was a little different.
The last time R went to the States was back in February. I gave him a shopping list to stuff to bring back…Crystal hot sauce, Diamond Kosher salt, Jif, Quaker oats, Cascade dishwasher tabs (how this guy made it through customs, I do not know). When he called from the airport while waiting for his flight back to Sydney, I tacked one more last-minute item to the list: a Gourmet magazine from the airport bookshop.
A recipe on the last page of that issue has stuck out in my mind since– milk chocolate brownies. I’m definitely a dark chocolate fan (and the higher the percentage, the better), but this sounded interesting. I went out and got myself a couple bars of Lindt Excellence, which in the same issue, Gourmet named as their preferred milk chocolate for general cooking purposes.
I bought some wattleseed awhile back, but still hadn’t used it. This is something that I’ve had in restaurant desserts here, and was excited to find at my spice shop. Wattleseed is from the Acacia plant, native to Australia, and is often described as tasting like a combination of chocolate, coffee and hazelnut. All good things for a brownie I think, so I eye-balled in a couple teaspoons to the recipe. I don’t think wattleseed is readily available outside Australia, but a little instant espresso powder will do the trick if you are looking to make the flavor a bit deeper (I always put it in my dark chocolate brownies anyway).
These brownies were surprisingly good, and I’d definitely make them again. They had a perfect texture–crackly tops and chewy, but not raw, centers. They were thankfully not as sweet as I’d imagined they would be. They had a nice caramely flavor from the chocolate with a hint of coffee from the wattleseed. The seeds and the extra milk chocolate that gets stirred in as chips at the end give the brownies a little crunch.
If you want the basic milk chocolate brownie recipe, you can find it in the February 2007 issue of Gourmet magazine, or here on Epicuious.
Baked Fresh Weekly
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
a whisk and a spoon 